HBO Go Craps The Bed During True Detective Finale

from the HBO-go-HBO-went dept

Hey, HBO, can we talk for a moment? It won't take long, it's just that we're all worried about you. We want you to know that we really appreciate this new stance you've been slowly but surely taking on internet streaming. We really appreciate that you're finally starting to come around on unleashing your HBO Go product to the masses, even if they don't pay for your cable product. We know you're scared about this big transition in your life, especially when you've had so much trepidation about it in the past.

Maturing is scary and difficult, I know, but you have to be prepared for the changes. You're going to be awkward for a while, you might get hair in places you've never had it before, and you won't understand what's happening to you. But if you're going to be a big boy digital provider, you can't crap the bed when the show that's making you the most relevant at the moment is in such high demand.

Some "True Detective" fans hoping to watch the season finale on HBO's streaming service were left hanging Sunday as the site experienced technical problems. Instead of watching the show on HBO Go, some viewers were left looking at a stalled loading screen. Frustrated viewers took to Twitter to complain about delays and being unable to access the show.

One user tweeted, "My HBO Go is just a spinning wheel of non-loading hopelessness and despair." Another wrote, "SOS: @HBO Go is not working. This is anything but okay. Someone give me answers."

All your friends want is for you to be everything you can be, if you'd just put in the effort. You're playing with the grownups now, so it's time to put the that little kid backpack away and buy a briefcase. If you're ever going to be the streaming service you should be, the one that will net you tons of customers and money, it's time to bolster the streaming service so that it can handle peak loads. True Detective was great, but that doesn't matter if nobody can, you know, watch it. And the first step in fixing a problem is admitting you have one.

HBO Go, in a tweet on Sunday night, said: "Due to overwhelmingly popular demand for #TrueDetective, we've been made aware of an issue affecting some users. Please try again soon." In a statement Monday, the company said the site had experienced "an excessive amount of traffic" and that the service was now "back to normal."

Your service being back to normal because nobody is watching it any longer isn't exactly an accomplishment. The days of getting stars next to your name for attendance, or trophies for participating, are over. Make this thing work reliably and you'll have all the friends and fans you could ever want, but it's time to grow up.

Re:

Their statement reminds me of when I had Clear WiMax service. They advertised an unlimited download service. Well I found myself throttled down to 20k/s. I contacted them and was told that I was using "an unreasonable amount of bandwidth". They throttle after 6GB. That's pretty damn easy to crack when you buy games off Steam and watch shows on Netflix and Hulu Plus.

Response to: Anonymous Coward on Mar 11th, 2014 @ 8:53pm

As well as Straight Talk. Straight Talk (Mobile Phone company, I'm sure you knew that) advertise "UNLIMITED TEXT! UNLIMITED DATA! UNLIMITED MINUTES! UNLIMITED EVERYTHING!!" for $45/Mo, which sounds pretty awesome at first because mobile carriers are greedy with Data,such as AT&T. However, after using 3-4 GB's you get throttled to Dial-Up Speeds, which I'm currently using unfortunately (I live 1Mi down the road from a major highway that provides DSL/Cable. Fucked up, eh?) which usually gave me 3 weeks to a month worth of online play with my XBox tethered to my phone, which is another big NO-NO with ST. I DGAF but I wasn't going to call them and ask 'em why the hell I was being throttled 'less they find out I was tethering. I tried explaining this to my brother because he also has a plan with ST and he loves watching Jim Jefferies on YouTube with his phone. He kept thinking his phone always fucked up because he watches so many YT videos and he gets throttled....He's not so tech savvy.

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And if they manage to do that, they'll still find a way to screw that up, whine about piracy (even after throwing every "alleged" pirate in re-education camps, forcing them out on the streets due to outrageous fines, or just plain killing them), bribe some more politicians, and find ways to screw everyone else over even further.

It's us or them. The space age or the stone age. Free market capitalism or cronyism/communism.

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It drives me crazy that bittorrent, one of the greatest file sharing innovations in years, is not significantly used for anything except piracy. When I download files from Steam, when I download drivers, Microsoft updates, PS3 patches, etc., I shake my head at how inefficient and slow they are.